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Subject: Re: Live chat with Feng-Hsiung Hsu (of Deep Blue fame) on ICC

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 07:36:15 10/13/02

Go up one level in this thread


On October 13, 2002 at 10:11:13, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On October 13, 2002 at 02:52:12, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On October 12, 2002 at 22:42:28, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On October 12, 2002 at 10:33:29, Omid David wrote:
>>>
>>>>On October 12, 2002 at 09:53:42, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On October 12, 2002 at 08:29:24, Omid David wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On October 11, 2002 at 21:57:34, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On October 11, 2002 at 17:51:27, Omid David wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>On October 11, 2002 at 11:51:13, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>On October 11, 2002 at 07:43:40, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>On October 11, 2002 at 07:12:34, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>On October 11, 2002 at 04:08:49, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>Isn't his article clear enough yet?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>Bob Hyatt still claims that it was 12 plies software and 6 plies hardware
>>>>>>>>>>so I prefer to hear an answer directly from Hsu.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>I agree.  But _I_ don't claiam _anything_ except that members of the DB team
>>>>>>>>>specifically told me that 12(6) means 12 plies in hardware, 6 in software.  I
>>>>>>>>>even posted the excerpt from the email that specifically said this...
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>That is _all_ I have said about it...
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>No matter what they say, even under extreme theoretical conditions it is
>>>>>>>>*impossible* to search 18 plies of brute force in chess, without any type of
>>>>>>>>forward pruning whatsoever, and no hash tables.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>However, they have _never_ said they didn't use forward pruning.  They have only
>>>>>>>said "we don't use null-move for forward pruning" and nothing else.  And they
>>>>>>>have
>>>>>>>slowly leaked details.  But they pretty much had to since I had gone over their
>>>>>>>log
>>>>>>>files and discovered that theyt had a _very_ good branching factor, too good for
>>>>>>>pure
>>>>>>>alpha/beta alone...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Interesting... What was the average branching factor based on the logs you
>>>>>>reviewed?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>I don't remember the _exact_ number although I posted it here in CCC and several
>>>>>were involved
>>>>>in a long discussion about it.. but the number was something less than 4.0 I
>>>>>believe, which is
>>>>>_way_ below what a pure alpha/beta program can produce.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I can't imagine a way for brute force alpha-beta to come up with a branching
>>>>factor of anything even close to that number (esp. without hash tables). With
>>>>regard to the branching factor, it seems that some kind of forward pruning was
>>>>indeed in place...
>>>>
>>>
>>>Remember, Deep Blue _did_ have hash tables.  Only the last few plies (done in
>>>hardware)
>>>didn't have hashing.  The first N plies hashed just like the rest of us...
>>>
>>>And you are right, of course.  There are details they have not completely
>>>revealed about
>>>whatever forward pruning they did to reach that BF...
>>
>>I understood that they were afraid of pruning based on Hsu's paper.
>
>Not if you read his papers.  He didn't like "nujll-move pruning".  And he was
>quite vocal
>about that.  But that doesn't mean he didn't like/do some other sorts of
>pruning.  And in
>fact, we now know that he did...
>
>
>
>>
>>Hsu considered the depth of Deeper blue in the games against kasparov as 12 and
>>said that they sacrificed 2 plies to implement their selective search
>>algorithms.
>
>Yes... the SE stuff.  That was what we saw in Cray Blitz, generally.  1 ply all
>the time,
>2 plies in some cases..
>
>
>>
>>If they really did 18 plies in the match against kasparov(if 12(6) means 18)
>>then I see no reason not to make it clear in a public article.
>>
>>Possible reasons not to say it can be:
>>
>>1)if the last 6 plies are something like qsearch and not something similiar to
>>what programs consider as plies.
>>
>
>
>The hardware does things differently.  (1) not a traditional alpha/beta search,
>but a one-sided
>windowing search.  (2) no hashing.  (3) not particularly great move ordering.
>(4) some sorts
>of forward pruning.  He mentioned futility as one thing, speeding them up by at
>least a factor
>of 10.
>
>Who knows what else was different in the last version of the processor since we
>were not
>having ACM events to get together and talk about the machine...
>
>
>
>
>>2)The 6 plies are not additional plies to the 12 plies and they have another
>>meaning.
>
>12 plies on a 30 procesor SP2 seems quite normal, IMHO, not counting the chess
>hardware at all.
>
>
>
>>
>>All their extensions(of singular and even in cases of 2 moves that are good
>>should make it harder to search 18 plies).
>>
>>The logfiles also suggest that they clearly did not use hash tables in an
>>effective way and the proof is the fact that the depth is not significantly
>>bigger in endgames.
>>
>>Uri
>
>We didn't see any simple endgames in the match...

I remember that I could see difference of some plies in the depth of Fritz when
I compared depth before trading queens in game 1 and depth some moves after
trading queens in game 1

I did not see a difference of some plies in the depth of deep blue.

It is not a proof and a better test may be to compare depth of programs without
null move pruning.

Uri



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